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"It was to a gryphon."
I huffed and Laszlo ignored me, carrying me to the edge of the tub before finally setting me down. His hands made immediate work of the battle tunic he'd leant me, lifting it up over my head. It was loose enough I didn't even have to raise my arms very high, but I sighed with relief as I dropped them again. My nose wrinkled as I caught a whiff of myself. I did smell like sweat.
Laszlo continued to undress me, placing my hand on his shoulder for balance as he undid the lacings of the leggings and worked the leather down for me to step out of.
"I take it gryphons are particular about their grooming," I said, sighing as my toes sank into the hot water of the tub.
"It is something done together in the nest. A group ceremony. From parent to child. And a…practice between mates," Laszlo said, helping guide me to sit.
I melted into the hot water, sighing and sinking back into the high, curved shape of the long tub. Laszlo stared down at me for a moment and then moved to the cabinet.
"Does Hywel clean you when he is awake?" Did Hywel tend Laszlo's feathers as I had earlier in the bathing pool?
"He does," Laszlo said, nodding. He lifted a green bottle and held it up to the candlelight from a sconce on the nearby wall. "This will help with your aches."
He unstoppered the bottle and poured a generous amount into the water, reaching down between my bent knees and swirling his hand. His gesture made the bath churn and lick pleasantly against me.
"Don't sink further. Let me get a comb for your hair," Laszlo said.
I didn't care if my hair got wet again, but I bit off my smile and sat up straight as he hurried to the other end of the room, opening a shallow gilded box. Rubies glimmered, then a glitter of diamonds, and finally Laszlo pulled out a delicate hair piece with long, sharp tines.
"Ares fashioned this for Aphrodite. She asked him for a pretty trinket, something to complement her beauty. He made her a weapon," he said, brushing the longest dagger point of the comb against his thumb. The metal was delicate and smooth, with great blossoms of silver and gold and steel pressed together in a bouquet at the top of the comb, every dangerously sharp tine etched with twisting knots. "He sold it to Hywel during one of their spats. It was one of the pieces Hywel used to woo me."
I stilled in the bath as Laszlo returned to my side.
If Hywel had gifted it to Laszlo in courting, was it right for him to offer it to me, even briefly? Was it right for Laszlo to ask me to groom his wings, to take me up to his nest and wash me, if that was a custom between mates?
Or were these intentional offerings?
Laszlo lifted my short braid from my shoulders and wove the comb through my hair, pinning it up against the back of my head. His talons fell to my shoulder, their sharp tips delicate against my skin.
"Lean back now."
I should go back to my own room. Or find Asterion, who refuses to make a claim on me, who would probably run out the door at the suggestion.
I did neither, leaning back into the support of the tub, sliding down to submerge my shoulders. Laszlo stood and unwrapped his shirt, peeling away the long layers, revealing his chest again.
"Will you join me?" I asked.
He shook his head and strode back to the cabinet full of oils and serums and who knew what else.
"I have a soap rumored to be made by Morgana le Fay. She made bars of it for Arthur and his knights to wash their wounds and tired bodies after battle," Laszlo murmured. "An oil that comes from Vasilisa the Beautiful—or her mother, really. She claims she used it and it added to her good luck in facing Baba Yaga."
Laszlo continued, and I pressed my eyes shut. Every bottle came with a myth, some familiar and some new. Their contents were precious, both in value and in meaning to Laszlo. He hummed with thought, and I blinked away the tears that had fought to escape.
I didn't know what I could be to this gryphon, to his dragon mate, or what was right to accept from him. But I craved his tender attention, his stories. And when he returned to the tub with three little bottles chosen and told me to lean forward so he could wash me, I did so without argument.
"I have a good sponge too, let's see," he murmured. "Aha. Narcissus's very own."
It was plush and deliciously scratchy, circling smoothly over my back. "Laszlo, what happens after my bath?"
Laszlo was quiet for a few minutes, stroking the sponge up and down my back. He lifted my right arm, washing me from fingertip to the hollow of my armpit, down my side. The sponge tickled, but I was too tired to squirm.
"You know what happens, dear one. If you want it," Laszlo said at last.
I turned my head to rest my cheek on my knee. "I'm clean enough, then. Or I could be quickly."
Laszlo's smile was soft, his head shaking. "I am not like the others, Evanthia. I will not chase you or tease you or wrestle you into a frenzy. You had your way this morning. I will have mine tonight."
